With all these stores of mine, you would think that I am making tons of money .. but I am not. In fact, quite the opposite … I’m making tons of nothing!! Well, I do make a little

It’s hard NOT to make ~something~ because I am an approved publisher of almost 600 vendors. Most of my stores have been created with the Datafeedr Plugin, which makes it easy to blend a variety of many vendors into a specialized and concentrated store. I’m pretty much hooked into all the major companies … Shareasale, Commission Junction, Google Affiliate Network, Linkshare, Medhealth, Bridalux, Pepperjam, and Clickbank .. as these are the companies that the Datafeedr program supports that I am approved publisher and the vendor has an updated datafeed in place.

I have quite a few other companies that are not part of these affiliate network .. you see for these companies and those vendors who I am approved vendor, but they do not have an existing datafeed .. well, I have a bunch of rotating 468×60 banners everywhere being randomized, based on the blog your are on!

By the way … I just figured out why that damn AJAX error was on my sites recently … and fixed it. It was the Tweetboard twitter script that appeared on the left side of each site. No one was using it anyway, so I just removed it and everything should be okay now. Sorry everybody

Success and Failure

For me .. I have to say .. I’ve had the worst success with Linkshare and Pepperjam and Commission Junction … and I still have a HATE-ON for Clickbank (see archives)! I’m actually getting a fair amount of clicks on the CJ products and banners, but no one is buying – and it irritates me to death that I can only see a decent webpage ONLY if I have my Internet Explorer up – instead of using my trusty Firefox broswer.

All affiliate earnings that I have received since 2008 however, except maybe one $75 cheque from Linkshare, have been from Shareasale. I haven’t really applied to many Google Affiliate Network vendors, although I was approved for about 10 vendors. Quite honestly, I don’t know if I have been generating traffic or clicks to the sites because I haven’t logged in there for ages … well, until this past week that is.

My Downsizing Strategy

I have decided effective July 1st, 2010 to stop promoting everything but Shareasale (SAS) and Google Affiliate Network (GAN) products in my stores. If I concentrate on SAS sales .. less choice should gear towards reaching their payout thresholds faster. Adding GAN will be nice, since I get a couple ‘hun per month anyway from Adsense and they pay out regularly on the 26th of the month directly into my bank account – so that’s a bonus!

Besides downsizing the vendors .. I also plan to downsize the products. Currently, although I personally like concentrated sites of similar products .. it seems to be the general consensus that my having anywhere from 300 to 10,000 products in one single store is not good – and, I shouldn’t have more than 50-100 top primo selected products!

So .. with the existing shops that I do have, I will be modifying each store (probably in alphabetical order) to only the top selected products and categories.

My Upsizing Strategy

So my existing 40 Shops @ HART Market should hopefully have no more than 100 products in there by the end of July. However .. there are are many opportunities out there and I also plan to continue growing with more stores. Some may only have 5-10 products, and others may have 25-50 or so and I still have about 60 ideas from when I first started that I could create with up to 100 products in them.

I will be sticking to my original gameplan .. to keep adding new stores until I hit 50. Then, I’ll either start another domain and community of shops .. (if it affects CPU resources on my server that is) or continue to 100 shops.

Other Wishes and Dream Cookies

Well .. if I can manage the above by the end of July 2010 .. I also want to clone myself, figure out a way to work 40 hours in a 24 hour time period, stop all war and bring peace to the world, feed all the hungry children save all the unwanted pets … and well, winning the lottery would be nice too.

And Now For Something Completely Different

… no, not Monty Python .. South Park’s “The Dreidel Song” of the episode of South Park episode “Mr Hankey Classics” (hopefully I can get the SHOPS @ HART Market back on track by Christmas!

I must have received a gabillion comments in moderation from this IP address by now … IP: 89.28.114.111 … and every comment in moderation has some reference or spelling similar to Viagra .. I thought I would post some of these comments in here for a laugh!

* I can not solve. Wanna good joke? What do you get when you have a cow and a duck? Milk and quackers.

* I apologise, but, in my opinion, you are not right. I am assured. Write to me in PM. I have a nice fresh joke for you people) What time is it when the clock strikes 13? Time to get the clock fixed.

* I have read a good joke in internet What is Beethoven doing in his coffin right now? Decomposing.

* I have a fresh joke for you) How do you keep a bagel from getting away? Put lox on it!

* Nice joke! What do you get when you cross a pit bull with a collie? A dog that runs for help, after he bites your leg off.

* I have a good fresh joke for you! Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide.

* A JOKE! ) What do you get if you cross a giant and a vampire? A BIG pain in the neck!

* A joke for you! Did you hear about the pregnant bedbug? She had her baby in the spring.

* Wanna very nice joke?)) Why can’t a woman ask her brother for help? Because he can’t be a brother and assist her too.

* Nice joke! How many computer programmers does it take to change a light bulb? Are you kidding? That’s a hardware problem!

* Fresh joke! Why does Santa have 3 gardens? So he can ho-ho-ho.

* I have a fresh joke for you) What do snowmen eat for breakfast? Snowflakes.

* I have a nice joke. What did one ocean say to the other ocean? Nothing, they just waved.

* Oh, good joke) Why did the bunnies go on strike? They wanted a raise in celery.

* I have a good fresh joke for you! What do you call an artificial stone? A shamrock.

* Wanna good joke? Why does a turtle live in a shell? Because it can’t afford an apartment.

* Wanna very nice joke?)) Where did the vegetables go to get drunk? The Salad Bar.

* Oh, good joke) What happens to illegally parked frogs? They get toad away.

* I have a nice joke for you) What kind of coffee was served on the Titanic? Sanka.

* I have a good fresh joke for you! Why is a bell obedient? It rings only when it is TOLLED!

* I have a fresh joke for you) A neutron goes into a barber shop and asks the barber, “How much for a haircut?” The barber replies, “For you, no charge.”

* Do you want a joke? Did you hear about the new restaurant that opened in India? It’s a New Delhicatessen.

* Wanna very nice joke?)) What did the Scotsman do when he couldn’t find a pair of pants? He kilt himself.

* I have a good fresh joke for you! Did you hear about the bandit that held up a Chinese restaurant? Half an hour later he was broke.

* Do you want a joke? What do you call a frightened scuba diver? Chicken of the sea.

* Sorry, for off top, i wanna tell one joke) What does a dog get when it finishes obedience school? A pet degree.

* I have a nice joke for you) What did the Scotsman do when he couldn’t find a pair of pants? He kilt himself.

* I have a joke for you =) What geometric figure represents a lost parrot? A polygon.

* A JOKE! ) What did one ocean say to the other ocean? Nothing, they just waved.

* Sorry, for off top, i wanna tell one joke) What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t work? A stick.

* I have a nice joke for you) What do you get when you drop boiling water down a rabbit hole? Hot cross bunnies.

* I have a joke for you =) What farm animal is a cannibal? A Cow, it eats it’s fodder!

* I have a nice joke for you) What did the elephant say to the naked man? How can you breathe through that?

* I have a good fresh joke for you! Which side of a dog has the most hair? The outside.

* A joke for you peoples! What is the difference between a fisherman and a lazy schoolboy? One baits his hook, while the other hates his book.

* A joke for you peoples! What did one cloned sheep say to the other? I am ewe.

* When you order frogs legs at a restaurant what do they do with the rest of the frog ? – Well surely they just throw the rest of the frog away and take it to the tip.

* Nice joke! Why did the dinosaur cross the road? Because there were no chickens in those times.

* A joke for you! What day does a fish hate? Fry day.

* I have a nice joke for you people! How can you tell if a planet is married? It has a ring around it.

* A JOKE! ) What’s the difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer? The taste.

* I have a joke for you =) How do you get a frog off the back window of your car? Use the rear defrogger.

* Oh, good joke) Why is a turkey more evil than a chicken? Because a turkey is always a gobblin (a goblin)

* I have a joke for you =) How can you make a slow horse fast? Stop feeding him!!

* I have a fresh joke for you) What has four legs, is big, green, furry, and if it fell out of a tree would kill you? A pool table.

* Wanna joke?) Why did the garbage look sad? Because it was down in the dumps.

* Nice joke! What do you call a day that follows two days of rain? Monday.

* I have read a good joke in internet What do ghouls wear on their feet in the rain?!? GHOULOSHES!!!

* Nice joke! What has more lives than a cat? A frog. It croaks every night.

* A joke for you peoples! What do you call a nun who walks in her sleep? A roaming Catholic.

* I have a joke for you =) What do sea monsters eat for lunch? Fish and ships.

* A joke for you peoples! What’s happening when you hear “woof…splat…meow…splat?” It’s raining cats and dogs.

* A joke for you peoples! What city has the largest rodent population? Hamsterdam.

* Do you want a joke? What is the most popular wine at Christmas? “Can’t we open the presents yet?”

* I have a nice joke. Samantha: Doctor, my son thinks that he is a TV channel changer. What are the odds that you can save him? Doctor: Remote!!

* Wanna joke?) What did one rabbit say to the other rabbit? Nothing. Rabbits can’t talk.

* I have a good fresh joke for you! What type of fish play poker? Card sharks.

* I have a nice joke for you people! What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches? A nervous wreck.

* I have a nice fresh joke for you people) Why is an evil witch like a candle? They are both WICKED

* Wanna joke?) What do you get when you drop boiling water down a rabbit hole? Hot cross bunnies.

* I have a nice joke for you) Why do elephants trumpet? They don’t know how to play the violin.

* I have a nice joke for you people! Why does Santa Claus go down the chimney on Christmas Eve?Because it SOOTS him!

* I have a good fresh joke for you! Who is Dracula’s favorite person on the baseball team? The BAT boy!

* Do you want a joke? What did the sailor say when he saw a boat loaded with ewes? Sheep ahoy!

* How much money would an average college philosopher make?

* Do you want a joke? Why did Willie Nelson get hit by a car? He was playing on the road again.

* Fresh joke! Why do carpenters believe that there is no such thing as stone? Because they never SAW it!!

* Good joke Did you hear about the butcher who accidentally backed into the meat grinder? He got a little behind in his work.

* A JOKE! ) What do you get when you play a country music song backward? You get your wife back, you get your job back, you stop drinking …

* I have a good fresh joke for you! What kind of music do ghosts listen to? Sheet music.

* A joke for you peoples! The dreaded Amish flu: First you get a little hoarse. Then you get a little buggy.

* I have a nice joke for you) What do you call Santa’s helpers? Subordinate Clauses.

* I have a good fresh joke for you! Where does satisfaction come from? A satisfactory.

* I have read a good joke in internet Why did the man put wheels on his rocking chair? He wanted to rock and roll.

* Good joke What’s the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don’t know and I don’t care.

* I have a joke for you =) What is the difference between a photocopier and the whooping cough? One makes facsimiles and the other makes sick families.

* I have a nice joke for you) What insect does well in school? A spelling bee.

* I have a nice fresh joke for you people) Where does the Lone Ranger take his garbage? Ta da dump, ta da dump, ta da dump Dump DUMP!!!

* Fresh joke! Why is a bell obedient? It rings only when it is TOLLED!

* Do you want a joke? How do crazy people go through the forest? They take the psycho path.

In conversation with the father yesterday, he mentioned that the child was concerned because he didn’t want to hurt my feelings .. apparently I am spamming him! He is just getting started on Facebook, and although he might have over 100 friends himself .. I’m his only friend that posts more than once a day.

Actually – I just looked – over one 24 hour period – I have published 23 posts on Facebook! I think looking backwards and forward, the posts in any given day could amount between 20-35 extra posts, depending on how much extra time I have to write and create new content and promote them!

As you can see there are a lot of posts! Of the 23 posts .. 8 of them are manually posted by me either on Facebook, or via Twitter which is posted automatically to twitter. The rest are automated posts to my twitter account either directly from my blogs and their feeds, and/or manually posted from my SU.PR account which, posts to Facebook and Twitter separately, so when the twitter post goes through – it posts twice to Facebook! (There were 2 instances of this above).

I’m guessing that probably NONE of them really were really interesting to my Friend’s 11-year old child and while we are friends and able to keep in touch in Facebook, I don’t expect him to be a reader of my blogs et al.

My plan is to get my content out there .. to market my stuff, market myself, and find new traffic. But, I already know that I am on the cutting edge with my blogs. I monetize them to the max. I try to promote the posts to the max. I have a popup trying to obtain newsletter subscribers to the max. I post all of my posts directly to twitter to the max. I’m a “Maxxie” type of guy!! (my Papillon dog is named Maxxie! )

Well .. good news – I don’t have my @HARTmarket twitter account posting here to Facebook. If I did .. it would post another 60-70 more posts a day!!

About Facebook Fan Pages

I’ve been on Facebook for a while, and have a slew of friends without even using Facebook (or, was that a gaggle of friends? a flock of friends?) Anyway, When I finally decided that I really wanted FAN Pages and set up 5 fan pages for each section of my network of blog sites … I really did not know what to do with my “Personal Account” to which the fan pages are attached to! At first, I had all these NEW friend requests, and ignored them hoping to only get fans. But, I wanted to follow people back, and they do not all have Fan pages themselves! If I were to follow interesting people on Facebook, then I would have to add them as a friend to do that. The next thing you know, I just started accepting all friend requests and even sought out friends myself!

Something Has To Be Done

In the next week or so, I am going to try figuring out a better way to not spam my Facebook readers, while still trying to get the word out – so to speak. I think I learned my lesson now. I have only been tying into the Facebook crowd since post-summer 2009 and have a lot to figure out. Questions that I am concerned with right now are:

1) Do I really need to replicate twitter updates over on facebook?
2) Do I really want to replicate twitter updates over on facebook?

Granted, I might have a lot more sites than the average person on Facebook, but how do other people manage their facebook profiles?

Feel free to offer me some sage advice, tips and suggestions! // Thanks… HART

Here is my existing business card for HBS Management Consultants:

The last time I needed business cards desperately, I ran out of the clean edge stock, and just used the heavier stock paper that normally use for covers on financial statements … resulting in these yellow cards that I may (or may not have) cut quite unprofessionally with dull scissors or worse!

Buying My Business Cards Online

Last week I decided to try an online printing company … http://OverNightPrints.com .. and get a new business card without my phone number, and more for internet ventures than my offline ventures. It is a hi-glossy finish, double sided, and has my toll-free fax line, my email address, my site URL’s, my twitter address and my facebook address.

Date Ordered: October 29, 2009
Cost: $39.95 USD
Shipping: $18.77 USD (standard to Canada)
Total: $58.72 USD
Date Arrived: November 5, 2009
Additional Costs: $36.19 CDN (PST, GST and brokerage)

If I were to convert that to the going foreign exchange rate of 1.0705, these 500 business cards would probably ‘net me $99.05 CDN. or just under 20 cents CDN per single card. Is that a little high? Perhaps .. but it’s not like I’m dropping these on windshields or in mailboxes around the neighbourhood – I’m handing them out to people curious about my online business ventures and/or ask me for my email address. I think it’s a reasonable cost. I did not want to buy 50,000 business cards just to reduce the average unit cost, because I would never get rid of them.

Here is my new business card

Well, actually, that isn’t me – it’s an automated service providing my blog with fresh content .. for Free!

Bloggers – Get FREE Content For Your Blogs

I’m trying Syndicate Kahuna on a few blogs – in particular, blogs that have been dormant or to prevent a blog from being dormant. For instance, on the “And You Will” blog I have a little store included and drip feeding product selections (books) into the blog automatically. Currently, there is no full time writer on this blog anymore, and I wanted some fresh content to mix in with the store content. This is a great alternative for me than (1) hiring another full-time writer or (2) writing fresh content every day myself.

How Does It Work?

There is no cost to the blogger using the service and content. I have included an affiliate link with the banner et al because authors have to PAY to submit content to Syndicate Kahuna and if you are an author and go through my link, I might earn a little commission. This is a quality HUMAN edited service that make sure that that quality of the content coming in, is also going out to quality sites (like mine! ). This assures the author that their links included in the articles do generate GOOD backlinks for them. Reading the site’s Terms of Service, I’m unsure whether or not I am technically allowed to modify the content – I PRESUME THAT I AM ABLE TO – as long as the links are left in tact. This way, like PLR articles, if I had the time, I could change the title of the article and reword it in a way and manner suitable to my liking and tone of voice. However, I’m quite lazy and if I did that – I would have a stack full of Draft posts needing to be edited.

The identical articles may be found in other sites, but they will limit the number of blogs they will redistribute content. But, it’s not like the free ezine article sites that distribute everywhere and have those resource box endings that stuff keywords and adds an extra 200 words to your post! For my “And You Will” blog, with the automated drip feeds and now the automated syndicate kahuna articles .. I will still occasionally go into the blog and provide additional and original content myself just to mix it up a little more for the google bots!

How To Use Syndicate Kahuna

Inside the website there is a list of “Sites Needed” ..

If you are a writer, you can see that there is a need for articles to be distributed to people wanting content on women’s world, fun stuff, other, writing and speaking, etc etc. There may be opportunities for you to write articles and submit and get many backlinks to your site if you are an authority on these topics!

For bloggers like me, I would look at the bottom of the list and see that there are many articles available per site like mine, under technology and gadgets, food and drink, and insurance topics. This will give me an opportunity to find selected topical articles that may be suitable for my blog because you can specify specific keywords that articles must have before any are selected for you. I thought I would do a mini-tutorial here, how I would go about selecting content for a brand new site in my network.

Tutorial: Case Study How To Syndicate Content With Syndicate Kahuna

For my “TEST” .. I thought I would try this on The Beef Jerky Shop @ HART Market because it is the first store in alphabetical order that is food related (ratio of 18.3 articles available per blog).

* Step One: Create an author with “Author Permissions” on the blog in question. You probably do not want to use a password you generally use for this . You also have to go into your “Settings” and then “Writing” and enable/tick the box for “Enable the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and Blogger XML-RPC publishing protocols”.

* Step Two: Log into Syndicate Kahuna and go to: “My Sites”, then click the “Welcome” link. There is a link below their step 6, just after the “if you don’t want to mess with uploading the script” part. Set up the details of your site, URL and author username and password that you just created.

* Step Three: Select the category that you want the article to be selected (it looks like the above image) .. For this case, I have ticked the box “Food and Drink” but, I can select up to 10 categories .. so I have decided to ALSO tick the boxes “Fun Stuff” and “Health and Fitness”. Click ‘next’ button.

* Step Four: Assign categories – this is already tied in directly with your blog, and you should see all of your categories. In this case, I created a new category called “Beef Jerky Notes” although, on my “And You Will” blog I integrated this into the various existing categories that I have over there.

* Step Five: Add Keywords and keyword phrases – As you can see, I don’t want any old food and drink article thrown on my site .. just related to the store topic – which is Beef Jerky.

* Step Six: Select Your Post Settings – I already have 2 posts a day on this and each blog that I have, so I will select only 1 post per day maximum, and “Publish” it immediately. The alternative post status was to save “Pending Review” if I wanted to review it more closely. What I have decided to do is publish immediately, and if the content is not what I want – redo the keyword section or, add keywords to exclude etc.

* Step Seven: Add Site > you’re done!

Feel free to follow my progress with articles in the “Beef Jerky Notes” category to see how this shapes up over the next little while.

Thanks!
HART

This is a TRUE Story. After reading and following the timeline of HART and the INTERNET, you can only come to ONE CONCLUSION! This is HART’s official entry in BlogCatalog’s Give Away contest to Blog World and New Media Expo 2009 .. and HART needs to win .. HART *must* win!

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

15,000,000,000 BC

- The “Big Bang” Theory
- The universe was created so HART could fulfill his destiny

3000 BC to 2500 BC

- Construction of the Egyptian pyramids at Gizeh

2500 BC

- Stonehenge was built

BIRTH OF THE INTERNET

January 1995

- Discovers something called “The Internet”

March 1995

- signs up with Compuserve

July 1995

- realized what a douche Compuserve was and obtains own host provider and 56k dial-up service

August 24, 1995

- win95 was released to the world and becomes HART’s preferred operating software

September 1995

- HART creates his award winning “HART’s Homepage”

November 30, 1996

- HART travels around the world from Winnipeg, Manitoba to London UK to meet internet friends for fun and gathering

December 3, 1996

- HART visits Stonehenge, after being mugged on a train on his first night in London UK, and miraculously finds his passport and belongings returned in another city 100 miles away with a letter from the mugger that said: “I like Canadians .. you guys are smart not to carry your money with your passport. Here is yours back. Cheers.”

March 8, 1997

- While watching A&E or the TLC channel history of the construction of the Egyptian pyramids at Gizeh, a woman named Yvonne decides to initiate a chat with HART on PowWow

August 31, 2002

- http://HARTandYvonne.com was created to memoralize HART and YVONNE’s medieval wedding on this date

FORMATION OF THE HART-EMPIRE NETWORK

May 31, 2005

- HART’s first blog, http://PetLvr.blogspot.com/ was created

July 14, 2005

- HART moves everything from Blogger to his own servers and to become http://PetLvr.com/blog/ and begins creating multiple blogs and websites and starts to build and ‘empire’ online

August 10, 2005

- HART creates a profile and joins Blog Catalog directory

October 16, 2005

- HART creates the HART-Empire Network and officially embarks on to build up his blogging empire
- Coincidentally, the birth of the HART-Empire Network and subsequent anniversaries fall directly in the middle of the famed BlogWorld New Media Expo conference, of which had solicited the HART-Empire Network to join and participate in an exhibit since 2006 and subsequent years

July 2006

- During rapid expansion of the HART-Empire Network, HART experiences growing pains and while a mega account containing 5 major blogs starts becoming a burden, HART moves all the expansion blogs to new hosting service plans.

November 10, 2006

- Joins MyBlogLog and discovers that a social community will be the future of forums and other catalog and directories, and creates a popular presence and standing in the community

Sometime in January 2007

- BlogCatalog is purchased from those bloggy guys and is under new ownership. In addition to a directory, there seems to be growing activity in a forum type of website

May 13, 2007

- HART gives up all social communities online and decides to concentrate on the blogging

May 13, 2007 at 11:59am

- Antony Berkman from BlogCatalog personally requests to HART …
” Don’t leave blogcatalog. We love a community made of characters. Check out the new discussions…. you’d be a welcome addition http://blogcatalog.com/discuss “
- (and HART never left!)

July 2007

- Receiving growing pains again, HART Consolidates all host providers into one single dedicated Server, at substantially higher fixed costs, however the upgrade solved a lot of downtime problems due to excess CPU Resources bringing the server down (not traffic levels).

August 30, 2007

- the HART-Empire Network impresses thegoodknife

September 27, 2007

- HART and the PetLvr Blog unites with bloggers around the world blogging against animal abuse and receives one of five honorable mentions of all the bloggers around the world contributing to this worthy cause by Copywrite, Ink

March 24, 2008

- TonyB commented on BlogCatalog that the HART-Empire Network was on the verge of going big, and enquired if I was going to SOBcon08

August 31, 2008

- HART receives an extended 3-month upgrade to his existing membership here at BlogCatalog for his excellent suggestion and valuable input to the betterment of the community

September 3, 2008

- TonyB is desperate for HART to find a way to make it to BlogWorld Expo Sep20-21/08, although timing just was not right – again in 2008, as it was in 2007

October 16, 2008

- HART and the PetLvr Blog participates in the first annual Pet ‘Net Adoption Event

January 4, 2009

- After registering record gross revenues for the calendar year ended December 31, 2008 .. HART still reflects whether or not it cost him NOT to go to any SOBcon events, BlogWorldExpo events, or any other blogging events during the year and reflects on the results over the next few months.

March 1, 2009

- The HART-Empire Network consolidates 16 health blogs into one mega http://BattlingForHealth.com blog

April 1, 2009

- The HART-Empire Network consolidates 12 do-it-yourself improvement blogs into one mega http://AndYouWill.com blog

August 6, 2009

- While away on summer vacation, during a typical Manitoba summer day (NSFW), and assessing the HART-Empire Network and its finances, HART recognizes that although traffic levels were maintained over the past 7 months in 2009, revenues have declined by approximately 30% since the consolidation of the 28 blogs into 2 mega blogs.

August 19, 2009

- BlogCatalog announces that they are Giving Away Full Access Pass to BlogWorld 2009 which includes a free 3-day, full access pass (valued at $1,195) for this year’s event being held October 15-17, 2009 in Las Vegas, NV… PLUS 1 million ad impressions for your blog on BlogCatalog!

August 30, 2009

- HART (aka PetLvr on BlogCatalog) decides to enter BlogCatalog’s contest entry with this post as his official entry.

CLAIRVOYANT PREDICTIONS

Friday September 19, 2009

- Blogcatalog announces that HART (aka PetLvr on BlogCatalog) wins the grand prize of a 3-day full access pass for BlogWorld & New Media Expo 2009, and a dinner in Las Vegas with the BlogCatalog team!
- HART scrambles around trying to raise money to pay for travel and hotel expenses to be able to learn and meet many smart bloggers and new media personnel that will be in attendance.

October 15-17, 2009 in Las Vegas

- HART has the time of his life in Las Vegas and … (oops, can’t say … what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas)
- October 17, 2009 – HART remembers to call his folks to wish them a Happy Anniversary

October 19, 2009

- HART starts first thing Monday morning with STAGE TWO of the life and times of the HART-Empire Network

January 3, 2011

- HART reports the largest and most success year ever! for the HART-Empire Network, with one of the largest list of online and offline friends one can have!

December 21, 2012

- Who would have thought … but, in the Bizzaro World, the forecast based primarily on what is claimed to be the end-date of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, which is presented as lasting 5,125 years and as terminating on December 21 or 23, 2012, along with interpretations of assorted legends, scriptures, numerological constructions and prophecies .. actually happened! Bizzaro World is destroyed by a meteor.
- Hello.

December 22, 2012

- On our planet Earth, everything is alright and everybody prepares to have a safe and happy Holiday season!
- Goodbye.

This is HART’s official entry in BlogCatalog’s Give Away contest to Blog World and New Media Expo 2009.

In the event that HART is awarded this prize, and unable to finance this venture (travel and hotel etc), HART will give away any free prize at the earliest convenience to a lucky and regular reader of the HART-Empire Network.

The tweetmeme button shows the number of retweets of the post, so I can see how many people LUV the post .. plus I have configured it to mention @PetLvr (me!) so I know our posts have been retweeted. It’s easy to install – just like all wordpress plugins .. go into your dashboard, click Plugins, then click Add New .. and search for “Tweetmeme” .. and install, then activate. Simple

A few things of note ..

1)

When I activated the plugin for the first time, the plugin appeared next to every post on the front page. Personally, I think that is overkill, because I am using the “Evermore” plugin to show only a few paragraphs of each post with the [more] link, and the button seemed to overwhelm the front page!

So – this is what I did. I’ve edited the single.php page (or appropriate file where the single post is being displayed) and placed the following code .. just before the content is displayed:


< ?php if (function_exists('tweetmeme')) echo tweetmeme(); ?>
< ?php the_content(); ?>


In the Tweetmeme settings, I ticked “Manual” instead of automatically placing the icon at the top or bottom of the post because I manually added the code to the template. I also added the RT @PetLvr so I receive notice everytime someone retweets one of our posts!

2)

Usually, when people RT one of my posts .. I tend to include that person in my #followfriday posts on twitter! and, naturally we will become bestest of best friends!

While most of you may or may not already know .. on Friday July 10, 2009 my SU account was under review. On Monday July 13, 2009 it was reinstated. All the details may be searched in BlogCatalog under my username over there if you are curious, but I feel that is all I have to say about that. Of course, I would like to add that I am now caught up with all the great stumbles in my SU toolbar now .. and with my normal random stumbling .. I think you are in a treat this week with some real “sweet-HARTs”!!

These are my favorite “sweet-HARTs” that have been stumbled by me during the past week, ended Monday. I hope you feel compelled to go visit these great bloggers and see why I liked their post! Enjoy!

A Few Great Stumbles This Past Week!

* Atomic Age Cinema – The Conversation (1974) – 12 parts
* Chris Cree TV – What is Social Media?
* Danny Brown – Seesmic Web Ups Ante for Twitter Management Tools
* Karaoke Lounge – Be the Music: Creating songs without musical instruments
* Kikolani – Benefits of Blogging – Developing SEO & Internet Marketing Skills
* Netalot – Reasons For Using Internet Explorer
* Once A Fortnight – Starvation and Trade – poor bed fellows
* Pot Politics – Link Building
* Techjaws – Free SEO Analysis Tool
* TreeHugger – In Defense of the Cow: How Eating Meat Could Help Slow Climate Change
* Wikipedia! – List of Most Common Misconceptions!
* Wimp – Most Talented People On Earth!

A Few More Weekly Roundups!

* Kikolani – Fetching Friday – Resources, Follow Friday & New Moon Parody
* TechJaws – Feeding Frenzy Saturday – Sharks in the Bay
* Von Pip Musical Express – Music News Week Ending 10/07/2009

* Your Site Here (if you have a weekly roundup post of good reads that is .. let me know!)

Around The HART-Empire Network

* And You Will – Staying Safe At The Beach
* Battling For Health – Another first: cardiac stem cells to treat heart attack
* PetLvr – Why Obedience Training is Important

If you like any of these posts .. please support the blogger .. participating and commenting on their blogs .. subscribe to their RSS feeds … follow them on twitter .. etc etc.

If you have a weekly roundup of posts and would like to be permanently included in this list – let me know in the comment section! Thanks // HART

Downloading update from http://wordpress.org/extend/some-plugin.zip
Download failed.: name lookup timed out
Installation Failed

Ever since I upgraded all my blogs to WordPress 2.7.1 .. I have been getting this error message. I was seeing it sometimes on a few 2.6+ upgrades except the error message said:

Downloading update from http://wordpress.org/extend/some-plugin.zip
Download failed.: Could not create Temporary file
Installation Failed

This also occurs when I was searching for NEW plugins with the new Plugin Browser/Installer functionality. What I have been doing since 2.7.1 is just keeping all the plugins current on my hard drive in a folder called .. c:\2009-latest-wordpress\wp-content\plugins\ and using FTP to just upgrade all the various blogs that I have. I suppose you can still do it this way, but it’s nice to be able to upgrade from within your wordpress without an FTP program.

You can really get frustrated trying to find the solution in the wordpress forums because the moderators really suck in their ability to communicate with people who are really having problems – not too mention you are lucky if you can even find a solution from a moderator because they are so under-manned….

But – I did find one possible solution

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/225437?replies=10

- venik4 –

WP 2.7 has a bug that has to do with DNS name resolution. As a workaround, add the following to your local /etc/hosts:

72.233.56.139 downloads.wordpress.org

Unfortunately for me – I personally tried to add this to my local /etc/hosts file and this did NOT work for me. So, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

However … this did work for me – and I am using Firefox:

Top Menu
- TOOLS
– OPTIONS
— PRIVACY
—- EXCEPTIONS (where you allow cookies)
And I added this line in the field:
downloads.wordpress.org
—- Click Allow

I am now able to automatically upgrade my plugins and older versions of WordPress and this worked as a fix for me. I would normally add a disclaimer like “I hope this doesn’t screw anything up for me” but, it’s just too annoying NOT to be able to upload and upgrade plugins at will – so I don’t care.

Inside its sleek, pared down design, this top-of-the-line PowerShot A2000 IS is packed with easy-to-use features. You’ve got a 10.0-megapixel resolution and a 6x Optical Zoom with Optical Image Stabilizer for big, beautiful prints and superb stability. To keep subjects looking their best, the DIGIC III Image Processor with Canon Face Detection handles the technical details – automatically. An Easy Mode allows you to concentrate on your scene, while Easy Playback lets you screen your images on a super-sized 3.0-inch LCD.

I saw this camera during Boxing Week 2008 and actually took a picture of the camera store fooling around and shaking the camera – and it took a perfect picture despite that fact. I was impressed. The only thing I am not impressed with .. is the two “AA” batteries that is needed. Apparently they only last about 250 pictures or so (and during display of images) .. so I will have to watch out and conserve battery energy.

In Canadian Dollars, it was $199.99 CDN plus taxes .. but, I had $150 in christmas gift cards to deduct from this figure.

Specs

SanDisk Extreme III SD Card – 2GB (times two)

* Designed to meet the critical speed and performance needs of serious professional photographers-lets you quickly capture, view, upload and transfer large image files Ideal for demanding photo shoots under severe weather conditions-heat, cold, wind, rain, snow, etc.
* Built to perform in the most extreme environments and temperatures-from -13º F to 185º F -25º C to 85º C
* Min 20MB/second sequential read and write
* Durable, reliable and thoroughly tested-temperature tested (heat and cold)
* shock and vibration tested
* Data recovery software-ensures your photos will always be there (even if you delete them accidentally)
* Dedicated, priority technical support hotline for direct customers of SanDisk Extreme products
* Included travel case keeps your memory cards organized

I wanted to buy a memory card that holds 1000 images, and apparently (so the salesman says) a 4GB SD card will do that. I have never had cards, and my last camera I was limited to the 22 images I could hold in memory of the camera. I figured I would get two 2GB cards though, so one will always be in the camera and one available – in case full.

In Canadian Dollars, these were $19.99 x 2 = $39.98 CDN plus taxes

Specs

ATP Pro Max USB 2.0 Card Reader

This NEW Multi-Card SDHC Reader offers the convenience of plug and play ability with all of today’s common flash card formats. It’s fast USB2.0 interface is complemented by it’s sleek, compact design.

I hope to conserve battery power by using this, and one of the reasons I purchased two 2GIG SD cards instead of one 4GIG SD Card. I will keep one in my computer in this card reader and one in my camera at all times! I can’t remember how many times I attached my USB cable to my camera, plug it into the computer and forget about it .. and then drained the lithium battery. I was able to recharge the battery, but it was a nuisance. With this new camera, being it uses AA batteries – this could become costly! I might have to buy some rechargeable batteries and a charger in the future.

In Canadian Dollars, this was $22.99 CDN plus taxes

Specs

Lowepro Recycled Camera Pouch – Terraclime 30

The Lowepro Terraclime 30, in Plum is a soft-sided, protective, multi-purpose shoulder bag. The Terraclime 30 was designed expressly for the eco-conscious, fashion-savvy consumer. The Terraclime 30 reduces environmental impact by virtue of its materials—over 95% recycled. All of the fabric is 100% post-consumer Cyclepet®: recycled 16 oz. PET bottles turned into sturdy, water-and-abrasion-resistant material (3.5 bottles in Terraclime 30). Multi-purpose styling makes it easy to carry compact point-and-shoot cameras as well as small personal electronics and gear.

My last camera pouch was “just the right size” but, when I added the extra battery and the USB cable, it always seemed a little tight. This pouch is a little bigger, and should hold the card reader, the memory cards, extra batteries, the USB cables and more in there!

Specs

All together … with taxes … less gift cards … this upgrade cost me about $164 CDN and I am happy with that price in my budget. My old camera still works, so I will be donating it to a worthy cause ..